As of the 2024-2025 school year, Chief Academic Officer Sloan Presidio has enforced a new system for Fairfax County Public Schools in terms of grading in which 70% of a student’s grade is carried by summative work while the remaining 30% is marked by formatives. Previously, 60% of a student’s grade was weighed by summatives while the remaining 40% took into account formative assignments. With the implementation of change within the FCPS grading system, there is now an increased importance of summatives within a student’s grade determination. This new system has created a topic for both students and teachers across the county to express their opinions on.
Some students feel that the new grading system makes it easier for them to raise their grades as opposed to the old system. Luka Gates, a sophomore, explains how the new rule has positively affected her academic life. In previous years, Gates grades were not to her liking, however, with the new scoring, Gates finds it easier to focus on school.
“My grades would have been much worse if the system was not updated,” sophomore Gates said.
Similarly, Easton Brock, a senior at Hayfield Secondary School, believes that it helps motivate students to make a better effort on their assignments.
“It’s good because it makes you lock in on tests and gives you a reason to try harder,” Brock said.
Additionally, history teacher Aisha Madhi feels that the new scoring helps students prepare for college, where tests and projects will be graded similarly to this new system.
“The new 70%-30% rule helps students understand the importance of preparation. It makes them take their work a little more seriously,” Madhi said.
Similarly, student Madeline Meshanko, a freshman, finds the new grading system to be advantageous long-term.
“I think [the grading system is] fair [because] it convinces students to study for tests and put in the work to do better, and that prepares them for college and the outside world,” Meshanko said.
However, other students remain unsure of their feelings on the change. Drawbacks such as increasing pressure on students to excel on summative assessments and the unprecedented privilege of the retake policy may cause students and teachers alike to detest the change.
“I actually need to pay attention in class now instead of slacking off. I mean I feel more stressed out because of the weight of the grades, but not necessarily because of the system itself,” sophomore Luka Gates said.
Alternatively, other students feel that the new system gives a clear disadvantage to kids who are not naturally good at taking tests. Sophomore Ramy Alridge explains that, with this new system, it almost feels as if it sets certain students up to succeed while causing others to fail.
“If you’re a good test taker, it’s kind of an advantage. But if you’re not, it’s a disadvantage because one bad test can tank your grade, and you can’t really bring it up with regular assignments anymore,” Alridge said.
Junior Reuben Amonankwa says that the new system has caused him to put all of his effort into one category of their final grade.
“I only focus on summative assignments, but at the end of the year, I’ll probably regret ignoring the formative ones completely,” Amonkwaah said.
This makes sense: why evenly distribute one’s focus on each assignment when the weight of each is so vastly different? Annie Lee, a junior, expresses the importance of the value of formative grades in terms of the work-ethic of students.
“Formative assignments help show progress. It feels like there’s no point in school anymore,” Lee said.
Teachers have the opportunity to oversee many different students over years of varying policies, which allows them to gauge, on average, the general trend in correlation to the new system. Wendy Feilen, a history and social studies teacher, finds that this new policy has not affected the entire student body the same.
“I think the students who are already [focused] on their grades…[The FCPS grading policy] stresses them [more], but I’m not sure that it carries that same amount of stress with everybody because that same population that wasn’t worried before, still, isn’t worried,” Feilen said.
Madhi also expresses this general student apathy in grades, particularly in terms of summative assignments.
“Students can retake and get up to 100% now, but not many actually take advantage of that opportunity,” Madhi said.
In conclusion, students and teachers have noticed the positive and negative effects of the new rule and have contrasting views on how fair this is for students. While the new FCPS grading system is likely to prepare students for college and be more mature, the format and execution of the system may not be best suited for current students. This policy is one that both students and faculty need to become adjusted to, and it will be interesting to see how it evolves over time.